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longer with his pity strove; / But kindled
to a wrath” which was worthy of him
Then call’d a general council of the Gods;
Who summon’d, issue from their blest abodes,
And fill th’ assembly with a shining train.
Jove calls the gods together to discuss
the abhorrent conditions on Earth, who,
upon being summon’d, leave their blest,
or blessed, homes, and fill Jove’s
assembly hall with their glittering train,
their advancing pageantry
A way there is, in Heav’n’s expanded plain,
Which, when the skies are clear, is seen below,
And mortals, by the name of Milky, know.
when the skies are clear in Heaven’s
expanded plain, its wide expanse,
mortals can see the Milky Way
The ground-work is of stars; through which the road
Lyes open to the Thunderer’s abode:
this Milky Way is paved with stars, which
lead to Jove’s, the Thunderer’s, domain
The Gods of greater nations dwell around,
And, on the right and left, the palace bound;
the dwellings of the gods who represent
the greater nations of the era, of Rome,
for instance, or Greece, surround,
encircle, the Thunderer’s abode, his
palace
The commons where they can: the nobler sort
With winding-doors wide open, front the court.
the more common gods, those of
lesser nations, live where they can,
while the winding-doors of the nobler
gods, doors which can be activated
mechanically, on hinges, though
perhaps here divinely, stand wide
open for this colloquy, this exalted
conference, before the celestial
court
This place, as far as Earth with Heav’n may vie,
I dare to call the Louvre of the skie.
if one were to compare [t]his place
this court, to anything on Earth, have
it vie with, one would liken it, Ovid
there’s evidently an anachronism
here since the Louvre didn’t exist at
the time of Ovid, so that the translators
have replaced the “Palatia” of Ovid’s
original Latin, which refers to the
Seven Hills, where imperial palaces
were built at the time of Augustus,
63 B.C. to 14 A.D., which is to say
during Ovid’s time, 43 B.C. to
17 /18 A.D., by this relatively more
recent palatial residence, the Louvre,
in order to make the text more
contemporary, like settings and
attire are used in Renaissance
art to kindle the viewer’s sense
of connection
see, for instance, above, where
Veronese depicts the scene of Jesus
in Galilee, and transforms water there
into wine to accommodate a shortage,
midst Roman, note, rather than Galilean,
trappings, splendour
When all were plac’d, in seats distinctly known,
And he, their father, had assum’d the throne,
seats distinctly known means the
traditionally assigned places, with
Jove, “their father”, at the head of
the convocation
Upon his iv’ry sceptre first he leant,
Then shook his head, that shook the firmament:
leant, or leaned, [t]hen shook his head
in revulsion
Air, Earth, and seas, obey’d th’ almighty nod;
And, with a gen’ral fear, confess’d the God.
the elements, “Air, Earth, and seas“,
acknowledge, or confess’d, the God,
with quivering anxiety
At length, with indignation, thus he broke
His awful silence, and the Pow’rs bespoke.
Jove, after a silence, bespeaks, or
addresses, the assembled Pow’rs,
the other divinities
R ! chard
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